Career as a Travel Agent

[AntiSoCalSkier]

I've been thinking about starting a career as a home-based travel agent. These are basically traditional travel agents that work for themselves out of their homes. Instead of having a traditional office, customers are served over the phone, via email and out of your/their homes. To make this work, there is a "host agency" that prints airline tickets, and collects the commisions. They obviously take a cut of the commisions (anywhere from 10% to 50% depending on the deal).

It seems that to make real money, you need to find a decent host agency, a dedicated clientel, and some sort of niche. Most people getting into this appear to like high-end cruises as a niche (making that a very crowded corner of the market). Needless to say, my niche would be the ski market. I'm thinking that I can stand out, since I actually have knowledge of the sport and the destinations. Unlike a traditional travel agent, I'm not going to send a group of beginners to Snowbird just because the hotel is awesome, nor would I send a family to Whistler during a season like this past one. I also have access to lots of potential customers (ski school students, online forums, ski buddies, etc).

I've been surfing around the web looking for advice, and while I've found a couple of useful sites, I've been having trouble finding unbiased opinions. I'm looking for some sort of contact that might provide me with some advice. A travel agent forum would be great, or maybe someone who is/was a travel agent (either home based, or traditional). It would be even better if I could find someone with experience selling winter travel. I'm sure that someone somewhere in the Maggot network has some experience with this, or has a friend with experience. I've been trying to find a forum for agents, but I haven't had any luck there either.

At the same time, I'm curious to see if anyone has any thoughts on this as a career move. I'm currently a ski instructor, so this would fit in nicely providing me with some income during the fall season. When booking trips do you guys use travel agents or do you go it alone? Why?

[MOHSHSIHd]

didnt read your whole post, but as far as I know the "travel agent" is a dying breed...with all the ease of booking your own trips online I dont see why people will still pay more to have someone else book trips for them

[Superstar Punani]

When booking trips do you guys use travel agents or do you go it alone? Why?

I once had a travel agent who was a hot 23yo 5'10" blonde with big succulent titties and wore a thong and miniskirt to show off her long tanned toned legs. If that is the description of a travel agent then I would use her. Otherwise I'd go it alone.

[yetipolice]

First... If you want to be a travel agent, you pretty much need an IATA#
http://www.iatan.com/welcome

I've had experience on both sides of this spectrum, both as a vendor (i.e. ski area) and also as a sales agent... and I can tell you first hand it doesn't make a lot of money for the little man... Like already stated, travel agents are a dying breed, especially independent "home-based" agents. You can't really make money off of commission alone these days if you're not a big tour op... even with a host agency, you're getting a small commission amount... Commissions are only about 10 to 25% to begin with, so if you go through a host agency you cut on that is going to be minute. Big tour ops (ie Expedia, Travelocity, etc) are really the only ones surviving because they can afford to run highly visibile websites that bring in volume. Also, all anyone cares about is getting the biggest discount, so if you can't get discounts, you'll have a hard time getting clients.

Just my opinion, maybe someone has a more positive one...

[Gebster]

Why not jump back into electrical engineering and work a company not involved with DOD contracts? Maybe JPL? Seems like Ravenous Llama had a really sweet gig there before he bailed.